FOOTNOTES:
[228] In 1700, however, there was an agreement, under the treaty of Ryswick, which extended the English limits as far as the river St. George, a little west of the Penobscot.
[229] See "Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century."
[230] So written by himself in an autograph letter of 18 November, 1712. It is also spelled Rasle, Rasles, Ralle, and, very incorrectly, Rallé, or Rallee.
[231] The above particulars are taken from an inscription on a manuscript map in the library of the Maine Historical Society, made in 1716 by Joseph Heath, one of the principal English settlers on the Kennebec, and for a time commandant of the fort at Brunswick.
[232] When Colonel Westbrook and his men came to Norridgewock in 1722, they found a paper pinned to the church door, containing, among others, the following words, in the handwriting of Rale, meant as a fling at the English invaders: "It [the church] is ill built, because the English don't work well. It is not finished, although five or six Englishmen have wrought here during four years, and the Undertaker [contractor], who is a great Cheat, hath been paid in advance for to finish it." The money came from the Canadian government.
[233] Myrica cerifera.
[234] The site of the Indian village is still called Indian Old Point. Norridgewock is the Naurantsouak, or Narantsouak, of the French. For Rale's mission life, see two letters of his, 15 October, 1722, and 12 October, 1722, and a letter of Père La Chasse, Superior of the Missions, 29 October, 1724. These are printed in the Lettres Édifiantes, xvii. xxiii.
[235] Père La Chasse, in his eulogy of Rale, says that there was not a language on the continent with which he had not some acquaintance. This is of course absurd. Besides a full knowledge of the Norridgewock Abenaki, he had more or less acquaintance with two other Algonquin languages,—the Ottawa and the Illinois,—and also with the Huron; which is enough for one man.
[236] This treaty is given in full by Penhallow. It is also printed from the original draft by Mr. Frederic Kidder, in his Abenaki Indians: their Treaties of 1713 and 1717. The two impressions are substantially the same, but with verbal variations. The version of Kidder is the more complete, in giving not only the Indian totemic marks, but also the autographs in facsimile of all the English officials. Rale gives a dramatic account of the treaty, which he may have got from the Indians, and which omits their submission and their promises.
[237] It was standing in 1852, and a sketch of it is given by Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, v. 185. I have some doubts as to the date of erection.
[238] Williamson, History of Maine, ii. 88, 97. Compare Penhallow.
[239] Remarks out of the Fryar Sebastian Rale's Letter from Norridgewock, 7 February, 1720, in the Common Place Book of Rev. Henry Flynt.
[240] Sewall's Memorial relating to the Kennebec Indians is an argument against war with them.
[241] A full report of this conference was printed at the time in Boston. It is reprinted in N. H. Historical Collections, ii. 242, and N. H. Provincial Papers, iii. 693. Penhallow was present at the meeting, but his account of it is short. The accounts of Williamson and Hutchinson are drawn from the above-mentioned report.
[242] Shute to Rale, 21 February, 1718.
[243] This petition is still in the Massachusetts Archives, and is printed by Dr. Francis in Sparks's American Biography, New Series, xvii. 259.
[244] This letter was given by Mr. Adams, of Medfield, a connection of the Baxter family, to the Massachusetts Historical Society, in whose possession it now is, in a worn condition. It was either captured with the rest of Rale's papers and returned to the writer, or else is a duplicate kept by Baxter.
[245] This curious paper is in the Common Place Book of Rev. Henry Flynt, of which the original is in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
[246] See Francis, Life of Rale, where the entire passage is given.
[247] Rale wrote to the governor of Canada that it was "sur Les Représentations qu'Il Avoit fait aux Sauvages de Sa Mission" that they had killed "un grand nombre de Bestiaux apartenant aux Anglois," and threatened them with attack if they did not retire. (Réponse fait par MM. Vaudreuil et Bégon au Mémoire du Roy du 8 Juin, 1721.) Rale told the governor of Massachusetts, on another occasion, that his character as a priest permitted him to give the Indians nothing but counsels of peace. Yet as early as 1703 he wrote to Vaudreuil that the Abenakis were ready, at a word from him, to lift the hatchet against the English. Beauharnois et Vaudreuil au Ministre, 15 Novembre, 1703.
[248] Joseph Heath and John Minot to Shute, 1 May, 1719. Rale says that these hostages were seized by surprise and violence; but Vaudreuil complains bitterly of the faintness of heart which caused the Indians to give them (Vaudreuil à Rale, 15 Juin, 1721), and both he and the intendant lay the blame on the English party at Norridgewock, who, "with the consent of all the Indians of that mission, had the weakness to give four hostages." Réponse de Vaudreuil et Bégon au Mémoire du Roy du 8 Juin, 1721.
[249] Eastern Indians' Letter to the Governour, 27 July, 1721, in Mass., Hist. Coll., Second Series, viii. 259. This is the original French. It is signed with totems of all the Abenaki bands, and also of the Caughnawagas, Iroquois of the Mountain, Hurons, Micmacs, Montagnais, and several other tribes. On this interview, Penhallow; Belknap, ii. 51; Shute to Vaudreuil, 21 July, 1721 (O. S.); Ibid., 23 April, 1722; Rale in Lettres Édifiantes, xvii. 285. Rale blames Shute for not being present at the meeting, but a letter of the governor shows that he had never undertaken to be there. He could not have come in any case, from the effects of a fall, which disabled him for some months even from going to Portsmouth to meet the Legislature. Provincial Papers of New Hampshire, iii. 822.
[250] Williamson, Hist. of Maine, ii. 119; Penhallow. Rale's account of the affair, found among his papers at Norridgewock, is curiously exaggerated. He says that he himself was with the Indians, and "to pleasure the English" showed himself to them several times,—a point which the English writers do not mention, though it is one which they would be most likely to seize upon. He says that fifty houses were burned, and that there were five forts, two of which were of stone, and that in one of these six hundred armed men, besides women and children, had sought refuge, though there was not such a number of men in the whole region of the Kennebec.
[251] Vaudreuil, Mémoire adressé au Roy, 5 Juin, 1723.
[252] Vaudreuil au Ministre, 6 Septembre, 1716.
[253] Extrait d'une Liasse de Papiers concernant le Canada, 1720. (Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères.)
[254] Réponse de Vaudreuil et Bégon au Mémoire du Roy, 8 Juin, 1721.
[255] Bégon à Rale, 14 Juin, 1721.
[256] Some of the papers found in Rale's "strong box" are still preserved in the Archives of Massachusetts, including a letter to him from Vaudreuil, dated at Quebec, 25 September, 1721, in which the French governor expresses great satisfaction at the missionary's success in uniting the Indians against the English, and promises military aid, if necessary.
[257] Wheeler, History of Brunswick, Topsham, and Harpswell, 54.
[258] Hutchinson, ii. 261. On these dissensions compare Palfrey, Hist. of New England, iv. 406-428.
[259] Sewall Papers, iii. 317, 318.
[260] Palfrey, iv. 432, 433.
[261] Penhallow. Hutchinson, ii. 279.
[262] Penhallow. Temple and Sheldon, History of Northfield, 195.
[263] Westbrook to Dummer, 23 March, 1723, in Collections Mass. Hist. Soc., Second Series, viii. 264.
[264] Hutchinson, ii. 283 (ed. 1795). Hutchinson had the story from Moulton. Compare the tradition in the family of Jaques, as told by his great-grandson, in Historical Magazine, viii. 177.
[265] The above rests on the account of Hutchinson, which was taken from the official Journal of Harmon, the commander of the expedition, and from the oral statements of Moulton, whom Hutchinson examined on the subject. Charlevoix, following a letter of La Chasse in the Jesuit Lettres Édifiantes, gives a widely different story. According to him, Norridgewock was surprised by eleven hundred men, who first announced their presence by a general volley, riddling all the houses with bullets. Rale, says La Chasse, Tan out to save his flock by drawing the rage of the enemy on himself; on which they raised a great shout and shot him dead at the foot of the cross in the middle of the village. La Chasse does not tell us where he got the story; but as there were no French witnesses, the story must have come from the Indians, who are notorious liars where their interest and self-love are concerned. Nobody competent to judge of evidence can doubt which of the two statements is the more trustworthy.
[266] It is also said that Rale taught some of his Indians to read and write,—which was unusual in the Jesuit missions. On his character, compare the judicial and candid Life of Rale, by Dr. Convers Francis, in Sparks's American Biography, New Series, vii.